CHAPTER 1

A ROYAL ESCAPE

Chapter 1 of The Frog and the Grog

Christopher Stasheff

CHAPTER 1

Swords rang through the hall, swords clashed in the courtyard, spear shafts cracked against one another on the stairs, axes thudded into shields.

Monahere hurried King Edmund up the stairs with an arm around his shoulders, for the king was only ten years old and not yet able to defend himself against armed and armored knights. Into his own private chambers the wizard took him and sat him on the edge of the bed to look straight into his eyes. "Our knights and soldiers cannot win, Edmund. Duke Viburnum has too many fighting for him and has broken into this castle in the middle of the night, taking our people unawares."

"But... how?" the boy king protested. "How could they get in?"

"Treachery, of course," Monahere replied, lips thin. "He paid some

servant to open the postern gate so that his people could sneak in once it was dark."

"But Duke Viburnum is my cousin!"

"Third cousin twice removed," Monahere said grimly, "which gives him enough of a claim to the throne that he thinks he can steal it. His kinship to you makes him less loyal, not more."

"Monahere..." Edmund badly wanted the comfort of a hug, but it was unworthy of a king. "Will they kill us?"

"Not tonight—perhaps not ever. Your parents were wise to send

your sister away to be reared in the country. At least she won't be clapped into

irons with us."

"Can Viburnum imprison the king?" Edmund asked, wide-eyed.

"Who's to stop him, he and Earl Shakle? They will lock us both in the deepest dungeon—if they catch you."

"If?" the boy asked. "How can I escape them?"

The door creaked, moving inward, and King Edmund braced himself, staying as close as he could to his wizard Monahere but trying to look brave and regal. The door pushed wide, admitting the sounds of battle, but only one man came through—old Tostig, bent and leaning on his staff. "You called for me, O Wizard?" Then he saw the ten-year-old boy and started to kneel. "Your Majesty!"

"No, please!" The boy king didn't want to watch the painful sight of Tostig trying to kneel or the even more painful sight of him trying to rise. "Stand tall, Tostig, as we have need of you!"

Tostig had once been a man-at-arms of great valor; none could match him with spear or halberd. He was still a huge man—if he could have stood straight, he would have been well over six feet, and was broad-shouldered in proportion and far more muscular than most old men—but age had made him stooped and slow, fit only for the post of porter. His armor was long laid aside in favor of a robe that came to his ankles.

The old man straightened as much as he could, leaning heavily on his staff. "I shall yet serve my king in any fashion I may! The drawbridge would still be high, if six churls had not come at me from behind to hold me bound while another let it down."

"You did all you could," Edmund assured him, "for what man can stand against treachery?"
"I thank your gracious Majesty." Tostig gave him another bow, but could not make it very deep. "Nevertheless, I have failed you, and I must make amends. I must serve my king in some other way!"

"Then open your robe." Monahere held up a leather harness.

"There is only one way for the king to escape this castle, and it depends on your broad shoulders!"

Frowning with puzzlement, Tostig opened his robe, revealing the smock and leggings beneath. Monahere strapped a belt around his waist; from it hung two stirrups. She buckled another with two loops around the old man's chest. "There now, Edmund! Climb into those stirrups and hold onto the handholds above!"

Warily, Edmund climbed up.

Tostig's face creased with amusement. "What, do you fear to hurt me? I am not so weak as that, lad!"

"Thank you, Tostig." Edmund took hold of the hand-loops. Monahere fastened the robe shut and turned back to judge the effect. "Walk, Tostig—three steps."

The old man hobbled forward, leaning more heavily than ever on his staff. His robe swayed as it always did, but no more. The king was completely hidden from sight, swinging as a pendulum beneath his robe.

"It will do," Monahere judged, "but can you bear his weight out across the drawbridge and into the woods?"

"I may be old, but I am not yet feeble," Tostig grunted.

"Can't you come with us, Cousin Monahere?" Edmund pleaded.

"No, Your Majesty." The title was formal, but the hand laid on his forehead was gentle and reassuring. "I must stay here to make a stock, a thing of wood that will look and sound like you, so that Viburnum will not begin to search for you until you have made your escape. You will be safe as long as you stay with Tostig—but should you become separated, do not trust any strangers, for they might wish to hurt you."

"Where shall I go, then?"

"To Cadavan," Monahere said. "He is a good-hearted wizard who devotes himself to taking care of people. If you meet Cadavan, it will be safe to trust him. Now go with Tostig, before Viburnum thinks to search for you."

"The craven traitor!" Tostig rumbled.

"But one who has many soldiers. There is danger here," Monahere reminded.

"There has been danger all my life," Tostig replied. "I have never let it stop me from serving my king."

"Then go with a wizard's good wishes. May you be safe."

"Long live the king!" Tostig returned, and turned to shuffle out the door into the sounds of battle. Beneath his robe, Edmund started to cringe, then remembered a king must be brave.

Sir Harry parried a cut from a king's knight, but the man whirled his sword around and stabbed past Harry's shield. Pain bit his shoulder; he nearly dropped his shield to howl for mercy, but fear of shaming himself in his first battle made him try to hold it high in spite of the agony. He threw his weight forward, slamming into the royal knight. The man toppled and fell.

Royal knight! Harry had thought of himself that way, until an hour before—but where his lord Duke Viburnum went, so would he.

Harry stepped over the fallen knight and kicked the man's sword away from him as, all around, the king's soldiers screamed and died. He parried and thrust as his shield sank lower and the royal knights fell one by one. It seemed forever, but was probably only minutes before the last few defending men-at-arms clustered before the door to the throne room, and somehow Harry was still standing, his shield still in front of his body as Duke Connaught, the regent and last of the king's bodyguard, shouldered through his soldiers to face Earl Shakle.

"Traitor!" Duke Connaught spat. "You ate of the king's food, you drank his wine, and in the depths of the night you opened the gate to his enemies!"

"You gave me the chance," Earl Shakle retorted, "you, and the rest of the royal bodyguards. If you had kept proper watch, I could not have come near the gate." He pointed with a jeering laugh. "Look at you, not even fully armored, with only the cuirass and gauntlets you could pull on as you leaped from your bed! Duke Connaught? Nay—Duke Care-not!"

"Your honor is not tarnished, it is destroyed," the Earl snapped. "You have turned against your sovereign lord, you have betrayed His Majesty!"

"A ten-year-old boy has no majesty," Earl Shakle snarled, "and my sovereign lord is Duke Viburnum."

"A prince of a cadet branch and an attainted line!" There was no need to mince words; Earl Connaught knew he was a dead man who, by some accident, was still talking. "Your rightful king is Edmund!"

"If he cannot hold the throne, he has no right to it," Earl Shakle retorted, "and if you and his bodyguards could not protect him, his crown is forfeit."

"He is king as long as I live," Connaught said.

"Then his reign has only minutes to run," Earl Shakle snapped, and strode forward, an iron man in full plate armor, two-handed sword swinging high as two knights caught Earl Connaught's arms and held him still.

Down the stairs old Tostig went, down the winding back stairs that circled the inside of the tower, muttering, "Be of stout heart, Majesty. We shall see you safely out of this castle, Monahere and I. Then we shall hide in the woods while we travel the land, seeking out those lords who are loyal to you and willing to fight to bring you back to the throne."

"Th - thank you, Tostig."

"No talking, Majesty, not for you. If they see me mumbling, they'll only think it's poor crazy old Tostig, nattering on to himself—but if anyone chanced to come close enough to hear your voice, our masquerade would be ended in an instant."

The clash of swords and shouts of battle came closer—and the

screams, too.

"I may have to fight to defend you," said Tostig, "and they may prove too many for me. If I must turn to trade blows with the traitor's soldiers, flee like a rabbit and wait for me in the woods at the base of the hill. They may overcome me, so if I do not join you by the time the moon rises, you'll know they have clapped me in irons in some noisome dungeon. If that happens, flee. Travel by night and hide by day. You've a sling and you know how to fight with a staff—don't hesitate to use them if anyone attacks you, for there are many who would harm a child."

"I must tell no one that I am Kind Edmund?"

"No. Come to that, better forget you're Edmund until we win you back your throne. Call yourself 'Ned' from now on, and think of yourself as Ned. Remember, stay in hiding until you meet Monahere's fellow wizard.”

"Cadavan," said Edmund—no, Ned.

"Was that the name? Young wits remember better than old. All right, Your Majesty, we're down near the door to the kitchens that any boy must know well, and the gate is only a short walk across the courtyard. Be of stout heart—we'll be out of here soon enough." The door to the kitchens creaked, and Tostig stepped down onto the hard-packed clay of the courtyard.

Under the old man's robe, Ned swung in the warm darkness that smelled of sweat, for in spite of his reassurances, Tostig had to labor to carry the boy's weight. He could tell by the pace of the old man's shuffling steps how far across the courtyard they'd come.

"There it is," Tostig said, "the gate—my gate, that I've tended so carefully these seven years! And that lout Shakle threw me aside from it like a sack of meal! Well, we'll see now whether his men can keep it any better than I, won't we, Majesty?"

So, muttering and growling, he shuffled toward escape. Ned heard the sound of his footsteps become hollow and looked down to see the planks of the drawbridge.

"Two men they've set here, but they keep looking toward the sounds of the fight they're spared... There, now, while they're both looking the other way... No, worse luck, one noticed me!"

"Rat running away from the castle when your side is losing, eh?" said a sneering voice. "Well, go your way, old fool!"

"Fool he'll think himself," Tostig muttered, "when the duke finds

you've escaped."

"Hold on," said another voice. "Why shouldn't we have some fun with him? We can't beat the servants inside, but here's one come to us."

"Aye, why not?" said the first voice with a gloating laugh.

Footsteps boomed behind them, and Tostig snapped, "Down, boy, and run for your life!"

Ned pulled his feet out of the stirrups and dropped down, ducking out from Tostig's robe and racing away down the road that wound down the castle hill.

"Hold! What rat runs there?" one of the sentries cried.

Ned heard Tostig roar and glanced back to see the old man turning to face the soldiers as they swung their spears at him to knock him out of the way—but Tostig's staff whirled high, then slashed at one of the spears, knocking it aside, and spun back to crack down on the other sentry's head. Ned looked no longer, knowing that Tostig would fight to the death to buy his king a few more minutes—and to the death it might well be. Tears flooding his eyes, Ned sprinted away into the night, determined that he would never, ever forget the old soldier and his loyalty.

* * *

Shakle wiped his blade on the dead man's clothing and turned to Sir Harry. "Admit your new king."

His gaze could have lit on anyone, a sergeant or a squire, but it was Harry who turned and ran to the gateway, where the armed and armored party waited just inside the postern gate, the castle's "back door," only big enough for one man and horse at a time. Duke Viburnum sat ready to bolt out and escape if the battle went against his men. Harry drew himself up and bowed. "Your Grace, the castle is ours—and the kingdom!"

The hulking bodyguards cheered and Duke Viburnum laughed in glee. Harry stepped up to help him dismount, but two of the great hulking bodyguards, Earl Rave and Baron Bravekil, elbowed him aside as soon as they had dismounted themselves. "This is our place," the Earl said, and Harry retreated quickly.

Ten minutes later, Duke Viburnum walked into the throne room, dwarfed by his bodyguards. He took off his helmet and blinked about him, bemused—but he always looked somewhat confused. "It's real, Shakle? You killed all his bodyguards?"

"Two or three may yet live, Your Majesty." Shakle bowed stiffly. "The king-that-was is already in the dungeon with his tutor for company."

Duke Viburnum gazed at the throne in vague disbelief. "It's real," he said again, as though trying to convince himself. "It's really real."

"Try it for size, Majesty," Shakle invited.

Awkwardly, working against the weight of his armor, Duke Viburnum climbed the steps to the great gilded chair, turned, and sat in it—warily, as though it might crumble beneath him. He looked up over his shoulder at the crown carved on the back, then turned forward to Shakle. "Feels like a good fit."

Shakle grinned, partly in satisfaction at seeing his man on the throne, partly in amusement because it dwarfed Viburnum. He stepped forward to the throne's steps so that his armored knee would have a shorter distance as he knelt and cried, "Hail, King Viburnum!"

"Hail, King Viburnum!" Harry cried with all the other knights and men-at-arms as they dropped to one knee. "Hail, King of Ustared!"

Ned plowed into the woods at the base of the hill, thrashing through the underbrush. An oak loomed before him, a huge old tree with branches as thick as he was, and he was sorely tempted to climb and hold fast through the night—but he could still hear the clash of steel from the castle at the top of the hill, distant and dim, but echoing, with the shouts and howls of knights and soldiers. Looking back, he saw every slit-window alive with light—but some of those lights were orange and flickering. Enemies were in his castle, and some of it was burning. His throat tightened and his stomach sank as he admitted to himself that home was horribly dangerous for him now.

But home should be the one place where a boy knew he was safe, where he could be with his family!

Family? What family was left to him? His father had died so long ago that Ned had never known him, his mother when he was so young that he could scarcely remember her. True, he had relatives—but Earl Connaught, his first cousin, was surely dead by now. He swallowed down the tears as he realized Duke Viburnum, his second cousin, was as close a kinsman as he had. There was only Monahere, a third cousin, but the only one with whom he felt secure, who cared about him at all—and Monahere would be in the dungeon before the night was out. The wizard would be safe, of course, having a wizard's magic, but in the dungeon nonetheless, for his cousin-wizard was determined to stay and hide his escape.

Ned had to make sure that sacrifice was worth it. He had to stay free, stay alive.

Alive! For the first time, he faced the fact that he could really be killed, that he was in mortal danger, for as long as Ned lived, the loyal lords might rise up in rebellion to haul Viburnum off the throne and give it back to Ned. Yes, he was very much in danger.

There was no safety here, near his castle. He had to run away, far away, and hide himself as he ran.